Tracking Continuing Education Points (CEU, CEC, CPD, CPU)
There is currently no special functionality for tracking Continuing Education points/credits in Wild Apricot. It is possible to track these via custom admin-only fields but this requires manual process. We are considering adding this functionality in the future and would appreciate details on how these are typically tracked by our clients.
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itwm7719 commented
Hi,
It is obvious that tracking CPU educational units is a big need for associates. And I see that WA ignores that fundamental requirements. I suppose because of technical misunderstanding of doing it. What I suggest for now is just to create a field in event, so an Admin could set necessary unites for an event. So, once we collect an event CPU units we can immediately create a report to see what courses a member participated and gained unites and at least manually calculate gained units. I think that it is very easy to accomplish and no time consuming to add such a simple field and let us collect CPD units from events. I think, this step is a very good beginning for us to resolve issue with CPD tracking.
The second update is let WA automatically calculate if a user have a minimal cpd units to be a member. But this is the future of 2025 year. ) -
Jim V commented
Well this is very disappointing to me, one of the key functions I’ve been looking for CPE tracking.
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Nick Mooney commented
Is there a way that a function can be added to a members record which would allow then to record the events they attend as part of continued professional development (CPD).
Ideally this could be in the form of a members calendar entry. Our membership have a minimum annual requirement to record CPD. At present we have to support a satellite website (picture attached to demonstrate the information collected) for them to be able to record this so that we can check their CPD ours before renewals.
The calendar entry would need to record date, start and end time, course title and have a section for adding specific notes about the CPD event. This would seem to be similar to the basic information we would enter in recording an Event (but obvious doesn't require the rest of the Event capabilities).
In an ideal world these calendar entries would be associated with the individual member number and visible to them only in their profile.
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Larry Wasson commented
Sorry if I don't understand and perhaps WA could enlighten us as too why this is so hard for WA to implement.
After reading WA forum comments from 2008 it just seems like WA really doesn't understand how desperately needed this important feature is to offer users and potential users.
This is the "work around" I presently use but it is of no help to our members because they can't see what I see. It also is very, very time consuming to provide this data to each member.
First I use the "checked in" button to indicate that a member qualified for the CEUs offered by the event. So perhaps the "Checked In" button could be titled "Attended" or perhaps a "Completed" button could be added?? Or maybe WA has a better idea.
Next, once an event is over, I change the event title from a "promo" name to a "CEU" name. For example, "4th Annual Educational Conference" became "Jan 17 2014 Conference 8CEU"
Now for the results: In admin view click on members and select a member. Then click on Events and you will see a list of all the events for which the member was "checked in", AND each event title provides the number of CEUs earned.
Now if WA would setup a way to print or export this data that would help a lot, but it would REALLY help if the same data could be seen, printed or exported by the member.
This may not solve everyone's frustration but maybe it will get others to make suggestions and most important for WA to provide a desperately needed improvement.
Best Regards,
Larry Wasson -
itwm7719 commented
Almost all-professional organization would benefit if Apricot add this functionality to its service!
Education and its tracking is one of the main functions of PO. Tracking manually CEP hours and email notifications is very unnecessary tasks that could be put on system automatically!
I see that “Donation engine” is almost solving CEP tracking in Apricot. And even the widget could be easily fixed to display a member`s units earned. It need minimum effort to add this functionality.So, if I do suggest all who are interested , please vote to this function. As I was said we need at least 10 votes of unique users to start developing CEP tracking in Apricot.
VOTE FOR CEP TRACKING!!! -
Evgeny Zaritovskiy commented
Ann, unfortunately, I have no recommendations for you. May be someone else can share there recommendations.
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Ann Ninness commented
I am looking for a way to resolve the issue for CEU tracking as well. It is critical that I get something integrated asap if this option isn't going to happen very soon. What stand alone applications would be recommended?
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BillE commented
Having used many web platforms for our site over a couple decades, we've been on the WA platform for less than a year and love its ease of use, customizable themes, etc. We're looking forward to the enhancements in the new 5.0 platform. Within a year, however, our industry members may be facing a new state-adopted requirement for continuing education for licensing so this thread and possible add-on to WA's functionality is important to us.
In addition to the features proposed by the Maine arborists, Lora and others, we may also need to track CEUs by broad categories. E.g., 6 credits in field X, 6 credits in field Y, 3 credits in field Z. We'll also need to track both members and nonmembers who take our courses, and have a way to produce reports upon which we can certify to the state that such and such people have taken the requisite CEUs.
it seems the most useful way to go to serve different needs of WA clients is to have some # of customizable fields, and ability to customize sub-fields or groupings of data. Hoping this functionality rises up the food chain of development goals. I'd like to avoid having to go out and get this functionality in a stand alone application for our CEU purposes.
Thanks,
Bill
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Lora Zachek commented
Good Morning,
Wow! This wish goes back to 2008 and is still active in 2014. I'm really disappointed nothing is happening on this in the new update. I can think of many, many professional associations that would totally be sold on your product if you incorporated this feature.
Please, please consider this feature in the near future!
Lora
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Bruce Rogers commented
This is similar to what we would need as well. If the "gadget" could be added into the members profile page that would be ideal. This way each member can track their hours they have earned. Also, in addition to the event name, date, description and hours noted above, if we could have a total hours earned cell (adds up all the hours inputted automatically) that would be great!
Thanks,
BrucePlease see our profile page (gaspnet.org) now as we have set up a manual method of doing this very thing but without any automated adding of hours or separate cells for descriptors- we just added it all under a text box which has been a bit cumbersome to handle.
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hsiggelko commented
The organization I am associated with is looking for this functionality as well. To be able to create a transcript and have them coded with hours, required, elective, instructor, dates. Create certificates for each class and for completing a structured program, as well as tracking the annual/required continuing education. For recurring courses be able to create a file to select from and run reports or rto add to an event. It appears many of these topics have already been touched on in this thread.
We are just now starting to look art this platform to tie into a current website and hope that, based on the feedback you have received, pursue adding this to the package.
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Evgeny Zaritovskiy commented
No, no progress. Most probably, there will be none in this year.
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kevanDFjones commented
In your post on 22 November you suggested that you were working on a feature that would allow associations to track certification and CEC credits - and you mentioned that you'd not be doing anything before April 2014.
Is this something you are working on? Can you share any insight into when this feature might be available?
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Evgeny Zaritovskiy commented
As of now, we cannot suggest any specifically designed functionality to track member activities (hence this wishlist request).
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Ann commented
Hi All
I'm looking into tracking our member activities and found this thread. I think this fits best here.
Our members are involved mostly by serving on different committees and we want to have a record of their involvement. Admittedly, we still communicate with members via Outlook for these things because committees include members and non-members and we have kept Wild Apricot an exclusively member database.
The best idea I've come up with is to create a member field with a multiple choice selection of the various committees. However, there are new committees every year so this would in theory be a long an every growing multiple choice list.
I just don't know what the best approach is. I'm grateful for any advice, input you have.
Thank you,
Ann Bertini
Assistant Director for Programs
Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering -
Kathleen commented
If the hosting organization is offer CEU credits for an course/workshop, the event itself could be flagged for CEU credits at a certain level, i.e., the number of CEUs is set by the administrator as part of setting up the registration page.
When attendance is confirmed - and here a new functionality would be needed on the event page or attached to the specific registration - the in-house administrator clicks a button that says "Attendance confirmed", and the individual's CEUs are recorded.
CEUs can be accumulated in many different ways, and not just from the host organization. For instance, a professional association for engineers will accept and record CEU credits when the member submits documentary evidence of having attended a course elsewhere. If I were a member of that organization, I would want to be sure that I can see the CEU credits accumulating. If I was a manager from the association side, I would want the capacity to post credits no matter where they come from, once they are documented.
Actually, thinking this through, this would be the best way to administer the CEUs earned by any practitioner - have the association administrator post the credits based on documents submitted. I would want to add to the fields suggested earlier, the instructor who delivered the content. Another, optional field, might include the acronym letters of the associations to whom the CEUs would be relevant. (maybe this is reaching a bit....)
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Evgeny Zaritovskiy commented
Hi Lora. We haven't planned this feature yet and there is no chance that we can do here anything until April 2014
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Lora Zachek commented
Good afternoon,
Adding a way to track CEUs for members at conventions is VERY important to our association. Our members are required to get CEUs to keep their professional licenses. Our Board currently has to report these CEUs to both a State and National licensing organization. Other associations such as ours use barcode scanners to collect the names of attendees at each CEU class given at a yearly convention. There may be five classes given at the convention. Some attendees will attend all five. Other attendees will only attend one or two, depending on how many CEUs they need.
I would like to see a way to utilize a bar scanner to input when a member attends a specific class and have that go directly into their profile so that they can print out or view not only the number of CEUs they have, but the name of the class they attended as well.
It would also be important to be able to export this information to an Excel spreadsheet because that is the required format used for reporting to our National association.
I would love to hear from you on the status of this request. Our annual convention is in April of 2014. It would be nice to have this tool. I have been really pleased with Wild Apricot's member management tools, but to be honest, I have started looking at other software that may also incorporate this feature.
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grace@mria commented
I would just like to pipe in and say that my association is also interested in this module to track continuing education points. We will likely go with another CRM database because this particular functionality is not available with Wild Apricot; other than this and another issue with multiple language capability, we'd be so on board as your client. (We are a Canadian organization and need to be able to provide service to Quebec members in French.) We just love the look and feel of the user interface.
We've had to research other options and the "Continuing Professional Development" and "Accreditation Manager" modules come standard with other CRM software companies. So what we're looking for is pretty standard:
* - for us, only a sub-set of our membership have a 'designation' that requires them to accummulate a certain number of points every two years
* - the administrator needs to be able to assign points to every event we offer
* - when the member signs up for an event, these pre-assigned points are attributed and recorded to their record
* - volunteer activities such as being on the Board or a committee is also eligible for points, so if we mark down that a member is part of the Board, a set number of education points are attributed to their record
* - we can run reports to see how many points members have
* - like member renewals, based on the number of points they have from whatever set time period, members are sent automatic reminder emails to beef up those points to meet the minimum requirement
* - members, when logging into their personal page, can see how many points they have.
* - Non-Association events/activities that are eligible for points: we also need the member to be able to input events they've attended outside of our association that we would give them credit for. So the administrator would have the ability to create pre-set "general" events with pre-assigned points. Members can log in, choose one of these 'pre-set' events and would then provide additional details including title of event, date of the event and other comments.
* - Auditing members: other reporting functions could include the ability for the module to allow the administrator to choose a percentage of members that could generate a report on random members for the administrator to do an audit on. The report would include the points the members are claiming, company name and contact number so that the administrator can do random audits. -
Lora Zachek Administrator Acct commented
Yes, I also look forward to a more automated CE module that allows members to input how and when they took a seminar (or whatever) with the CE value of that seminar (course, class, test, workshop, convention), a math function, and then have the CE module either prevent renewal due to lack of the required number of CE hours or enable the renewal once the CE hours requirements have been satisfied.
In our case, members need 5 hours of CE to renew. If they attend a workshop that credits them with 10 hours, they will use up 5 of those hours for current renewal and then be able to "save" the remaining 5 hours that will satisfy the next year's CE requirements as well.